My little boy turns 2! and Elmo....

Thats right, my chubby cheeked, mischeivous little boy has officially turned into a toddler! He is now 2! how did that happen? where did those 2 years go?

I decided to really challenge myself this year, I was going to make Elmo cookies , instead of goodie bags, an Elmo cake as well as Elmo cup cakes. It didn't quite happen the way I planned...

I found a Red Velvet cake recipe on joy of baking , I have always been intrigued by the ruby red luscious look of this type of cake.
My first two cake layers looked great! but then to my horror when I tried to move one, it just fell apart! I scraped up all remnants and put in a bowl...I had an idea...(more on that later!)
I made another two layers, dis regarding the fact that it was 2am, the cupcakes could wait till the next day.
Awaking nice and early and running on very little sleep, I managed to get the cupcakes made (with a little help from Master J, who gave his seal of approval when my back was turned and nabbed as many as he could fit in his chubby little hands ) then whipped up the butter cream, I had already abandoned any hope of doing Elmo faces on the cupcakes, I decided to just go with the same colour scheme.
I made up a heap of number 2 5cm biscuits to go as cupcake toppers and iced them in red and black.
My elmo biscuits had turned out really well, I was ever so pleased with them! Had them done and packaged and put away, then I returned to the cake and cupcakes.

Twas the night before the party, pulled out my buttercream and started tinting it, I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do with the cake, ended up being 3 layers of red velvet (and boy, was it RED!) with vanilla buttercream between layers, iced allover with buttercream then I piped on elmos's face and all the rest.

and heres my finished cake! oh, I also used an edible image strip around the sides..
I was very impressed, seeing as it was my first go at doing something like that!
the cupcakes I was and am still rather "meh" about, but heres a pic anyway..

now for the awesomeness...! remember that cake that crumbled? I stuck it in the fridge out of the way while doing all the above, then after finishing all that I took a leaf out of Bakerella's blog, and made some red velvet cake pops!
Being in Australia, I don't think we have "cream cheese frosting in a can" so I improvised with a block of Philly and icing sugar, mixed it all in with the cake crumbs and fashioned balls, stuck them on a stick, then dipped in melted white chocolate...can I just say YUM!!

I think you can see from the pic, just how RED they were!
they didn't last long on the day, everyone wanted one (or two!)
so all up it was a success, I am sure Jbaby had a great day, even I did, no stressing out, all was prepared beforehand and didn't cost me a fortune!
and heres one of Jbaby enjoying his birthday cake!

mmmm, red deliciousness!

Hmmm..getting a bit slack with this!

Yes, it has been over a week since I last posted. oh well, I'm making the effort now, that has to count for something, right?
I am gleefully collecting orders, every time some one emails me, I am happily shocked that they want MY biscuits! I have quite a few lined up for October, some in November and even another 2 now in December.
Jman has been very helpful in downloading and installing zen cart for me to use as my shopping cart, but he then gave me the links and said "there you go, run with it!" Sooo, the last few weeks have seen me, struggling to understand how to navigate the thing, data input and the like, I have had a bit of a break for a few days, it was giving me too many headaches!
During all this set up, I came up with the idea of holding a promotional event to coincide with the opening of said shopping cart, seeing as it would hopefully  be finished sometime in October, I decided to link it in with fundraising for The National Breast Cancer Foundation. I had already signed up to host a "girls night in" so I shot off an email to the NBCF with my idea, they approved it. Next I had to speak to Father in laws partner about hosting it at her restaurant/cafe, She was up for it, so far, so good!
I did a shout out on FB to see if any of my friends would like to donate products/services from their businesses, I have had quite a good response!
Received today my pink ribbon cookie cutters, so have been busy mixing, baking and decorating. I have been having so much fun with pink things for decorating!

mmm pink sprinkles.

pink with silver cachous

I got a bread maker!

The Jman loves fresh bread. We had a second hand bread maker, which lasted a few years, then the bearing gave out and resulted in flat, lumpy, heavy bricks of bread. So we bought a new one.
A really cool new one! that has lots of different settings and options, unlike the old one which only had knead and bake.
The new one has jam setting, and different dough settings, options to add stuff like nuts and dried fruits with an automatic dispenser! it also came with a book FULL of recipes for bread, doughs (pizza, foccacias etc) also buns! I just LOOOOVE a good sticky bun.
My dad, when I was a child used to make the most heavenly, sticky, coffee and cinnamon scrolls, I have pestered him for years to make them again, all to no avail.
So I made my own.
Using my brand spanking new bread machine to knead the dough. I wasn't all that confident but they actually worked out quite well, and tasted delicious.

These ones are caramel and walnut scrolls, before I added icing.

and after...

mmm, so yummy, Dad was impressed, hehehe.

And Jman is happy as now we can once again have fresh bread, although I will be honest and say that I have not yet attempted making bread from scratch, I buy those single packet bread mixes for crusty white loaves, maybe next time I will try to do it myself.

it's been a while!

I have been slack with posting, but I have been busy! last saturday was a very crazy and hectic day. I finished decorating and packaging my friends baby shower Biscuits

I also finished up and wrapped my little friend "kitty" Bouquet

I made a start on my first order, I baked and iced 15 round cookies, in varying bright colours. I made up some mini melting moments to take to my parents and for my Sister in Law. I then packed up all mine and Jbaby stuff to go stay at my parents place for the night,so by 4pm I was driving in one direction to drop off the kitty Bouquet, I think my friend really liked it! While there I was fielding phone calls from my friend with the baby shower, trying to organise a place to meet so I could hand over his biscuits.

I then started driving in the opposite direction, towards my parents place (they live about an hour away from me!) around the halfway mark I met my friend at a shopping centre carpark and dropped his biscuits to him, he was impressed! He really wanted to pay me, but I just made him promise to tell everyone who made them and give my phone number! 

I then continued driving, but I didn't go to my parents yet, I needed to drop in on my Sister in Law who had gotten out of hospital that day, as soon as I pulled up at her place I got a phone call from Dad "Tea's ready, where are you??" oops, It all took a bit longer than I thought it would! I had a quick visit with Sis in law, said I would come back the next day, gave her her melting moments and I was on my way again, luckily my parents only live just up the road from her.

Saturday night was nice, Jbaby slept well, we left the next morning and after visiting Sis in law again quickly we came home again.

DISASTER!!! The icing on the round biscuits for my order had gone all funny! Silly me didn't use enough icing sugar! I could have slapped myself!!

So that night I made another batch up, I made them bigger, then I had the idea of using the packet of roll out icing I had in the cupboard, so I coloured lots of balls of icings in different colours and rolled it out as thin as I could (I'm not a big fan of fondant icing, especially thick layers of it) and cut out disks of it to place on top of the biscuits, advantage of that being there is less drying time and I could get on to the personalisation quicker.

I used my ABC cutters to cut out the first letters of the childs name in contrasting colours, then used black royal icing to outline and pipe the rest of the name. I was very happy with the result! 

I think they look kinda comic booky. 

It's all Happening

My day was not very productive yesterday, much to my dis appointment, I did manage to get most of the "Hello Kitty" Bouquet done for tomorrow, still just need to ice her dear little faces on.
My friend that wanted the baby shower cookies? I have decided to just make them for him and give them to him, as a gift. If more people can see my stuff or hear about what I'm doing, then it's a good thing! Plus I will get to take photos and show them off on here!
I did a batch of corn flake cookies too, working on the rest as I type, need to go deliver them soon, sorry, the melting moments are baking right now, I'm waiting on the cornflake ones to cool. Going to take four of the melting moments down to Costa Vista for them to try, you never know they may just order some..

Great news today though! I really have my first order now! through my page on FB. Will be busy this weekend getting 14 personalised, individually wrapped biscuits ready for a childs party. Posting them off on Monday.
so, Yeah, it's all happening, right here, right now.

It's 5am

and I'm thinking about baking already!
Had to be up early this morning as the Jman left VERY early for his flight to Sydney.
Jbaby is also awake, otherwise I think I would actually prefer to be in a blissful state of slumber. There was far too much excitement going on for him to go back to sleep, so planning and designing it is!
I now have myself a sketch book, in which I have been jotting down ideas and designs for biscuits, flavours I want to try and icing designs I'd like to do.
It is amazing the amount of beautiful photos on the web, I love looking at other baking blogs and seeing what ideas others have come up with.
I have also been doing a bit of research into packaging. I originally planned on doing something like 1-3 biscuits in a bag, tied up with ribbon, simple, looks great.
Cookie Bouquets is another thing I'm about to have a go at, which will involve quite a bit more packaging and wrapping, ie; individual wrap for each biscuit, pot/basket/mug or box for them to stick into, then cello wrap the lot and finish with bows or ribbons.

So, for today I think I need to get down to the shops, stock up on some essentials, then get baking! I really want to give the melting moments recipe a try, I will drop some off with the cornflake cookies, see if they sell.
I also want to do some more iced biscuits so I can get more photos up, Im not particularly proud of what I have up at the moment, I know I can do better!

I'm Baking!

Cookies, that is! Making up cornflake cookies for my only real order so far. My kitchen smells absolutely devine right now!
My Mum has asked me to make a "biscuit bouquet" for her work collegue's upcoming birthday, I will be having ALOT of fun with that! Still trying to source some small clear cellophane bags for things like this, I suppose I can just wrap them in clear cello then tie with ribbon, but I think the bags will look more professional.
Also need to find a small coloured box to stick them into, will probably have a look around the shops this week, see if I can find something suitable.
I have mums group tomorrow, was planning on making up some cornflake cookies and some melting moments to take, for all the girls to sample, don't know if I will be able to do it now though.
The Jman is off to Sydney for work, so I have to go pick up his suits in the city tomorrow morning, won't really leave me enough time...

Staying Positive!

On Sat night my little family went down to my mum and dads place for dinner, celebration for Fathers Day as on the Sun we were having lunch with Jmans Dad.
My friend was there that had wanted the baby shower biscuits, I asked him if he had decided how many etc, to my utter dismay he said he didn't want them anymore.
Ah well, what can you do, I am really trying not to take it personally and to be positive about it. It's HARD though. I was really looking forward to making and decorating them and having lots more pic's to share on here.
Good new is that on Sunday, I managed to have a chat to the Father in laws partner, she has ordered 24 cornflake cookies for this week! Hopefully that will be a weekly thing.

I have my fingers crossed that today my new gel food colourings get delivered, I'm especially excited about getting the BLACK one! I have a heap of as yet, faceless Hello Kitty cookies waiting for it.
It is a special little girls Birthday today and I am planning on making her a platter of biscuits up for her "sleepover" this weekend. Can't wait to see how the Kitty ones will turn out.

Having looked back through some of my photos of my first biscuit decorating attempts, I'm almost embarrassed, I also have them posted on my business page on FB, I may have to tag them as examples of how much better I am now! It's amazing what learning the correct techniques can do for presentation.

FaceBook...

I have started a page on FB, the Jman has challenged me to get more orders, if I can do this he is willing to support my creative attempt at this! He will help me out with subsidising packaging and website designing etc.
I want to get little stickers to put on cello bags, tied up with satin ribbon, or maybe a pretty cardboard box type thing with a clear front (so you can see the designs of the biscuits) tied up with a bow and sticker on the front.
ehhhhh...I will get there! Positive thinking first, right?
I need to take some more pictures of my latest creations, but my camera batteries are flat, it is pouring down with rain at the moment (including thunder and lightning!) and Jbaby is asleep all of which conspire to make going to the shops pretty impossible at this point in time...

My first REAL order!

A friend of mine has just given me an order for 36 of the ginger bread babies, for a baby shower, next sunday!
This time I can use all sorts of pinks, as the shower is for a baby girl.
Just now going through all my recipes and breaking down costs, I have no idea what to charge! EEEK!! I really hate maths too, even really, stupidly simple maths, like this is.
Im thinking it may be a good idea to do this for all my bicky recipes, then I have it on hand if I ever need it...
My friend is calling me back later this week to confirm the design and if he wants them individually wrapped or no, if so, then I need to add more on for that...
Wooooo, this is exciting!!

I have NEW cookie cutters!

I think this is becoming an obsession, I dare not count the number of cookie cutters I now posses.
On Monday I received my much awaited for "Hello Kitty" head shape cookie cutter with template for the face, was very excited to find that on Ebay, I adore all things Hello Kitty! I have cookie dough in the fridge right now just begging for me to make some kitty biscuits.
Last Thursday I met my parents at Ikea for breakfast (gross out powdered eggs, apart from that was ok for the price!) I then moseyed over to Harbour town for a nosey, I walked out of that place with a bag full of new cookie cutters. I bought a container full of ABC's and 123's (well, the whole alphabet and numbers etc.) some really cute retro tins full of plain round cutters going from 2cm up to 15 cm, and another of the same but with fluted edges. Also a dragon fly, a foot, some more stars in different sizes.
Today, Jman, Jbaby and I went for a trip to Gaganis Bros warehouse, where I picked up a big plastic tub of 50 assorted animal shapes for quite a good price, I'm so excited, I just want to make one of each and go crazy with decorating!! I'm sure many, many pic's will follow!

Looks like I have a job!

Jmans Dads Partner owns a hotel/motel, we were there for tea last night and the lady in question asked me to make her some cornflake cookies. (not that I was selfpromoting or anything! LOL!!)
Today I did that, have just come back from dropping off some samples for her, there would have been more but as always Jbaby REALLY seems to like my baking and took off with a few for himself...
They were a success, YAY, so now I need to work out my costings/price etc and start baking some more!

a 21st Gift with a difference!

The Saturday before the baby shower was my younger brothers, Girlfriends 21st Birthday.
Seeing as I was baking anyway, I decided to cut out a big round disc of cookie dough and ice a special cookie just for her.

thats the finished product,all wrapped and ready, I had to make a bit of an emergency patch job on it  as Jbaby thoght it looked rather good too and tried to swipe it off the table, it fell out of his mits and smashed the star off it...Don't think it looks too bad though...??

The Baby Shower Blitz

My brother and his fiance are expecting a baby in september, I was asked to help organise the baby shower. My food contribution was to make some decorated gingerbread babies.
Three days before the big day, I started to panic. SOOOO much to do!! I waited till Jbaby was in bed for the night and then renewed my relationship with my beloved Kitchen Aid, mixing up the gingerbread dough. I needed around 150 biscuits, so I made up 3 batches. During the mixing of batch no.2 I realised I had run out of ginger, oops! So one batch became honey spice instead. gotta love the improvisation!
All three batches were wrapped in plastic and chucked in the fridge, a rather bad idea I realised the next day when trying to soften the now rock hard lumps of cookie dough.
I managed eventually and in one night cut and baked 50 odd gingerbread babies, 50 odd next size up ginger bread men and 50 odd hearts. All now just waiting to be iced.

The next night I started my production line of icing, first outlining and then flooding the biscuits with white royal icing, I had spent most of that day trawling the net, looking for inspiration on design ideas and came across so many wonderful (mostly American) sites all about icing and decorating cookies. The best thing I found was a recipe for the royal icing using egg white powder or meringue powder (known here as "pavlova magic") I went out and bought some and gee, I was impressed!

I iced all of these using either baking paper cones or small freezer bags as my piping bags, I eventually enlisted the help of the Jman and my parents to have the biscuits all ready by the Sunday afternoon. My father got quite carried away with the decorating and even at one point made some "mardi gras" ones, with studded briefs and o's for mouths (hope no one was offended!!)
I spent a good half hour Sunday morning packaging up the bickys in little cello parcels with ribbon, forgot to take a pic of the finished products though (D'OH!!)

How it all started...

Quite a few years ago now, I thought I would give making Gingerbread a try, for Christmas, to give as gifts. (I could blab on about how I wanted to make a special effort for those I loved etc, etc, but truth be told I being cheap!)

The Gingerbread was a success, as were my goodie baskets, they quickly became a "tradition" of sorts, which sees me every week before the 25th December, sweating it out in the kitchen, mixing, baking, decorating and then packaging the goods. Jman would roll his eyes at me as he swiped yet another biscuit, pudding, or truffle from the piles of unwrapped treats. "why the hell do you do this to yourself?" he would ask,at around midnight, waiting for me to, once again to come to bed. Every year, I would answer, "I enjoy it!" and  I did, still do.

The thing is that come Dec 2008, I had a 6 week old baby to contend with. I tried, I really did, I managed to mix and bake...that was as far as I got. I took a basket of un iced gingerbread men and assorted shapes wrapped in a tea towel to my Mothers that Xmas. 

Dec 2009, I only made one large batch, I mixed, baked and iced, but I was showing off for my mums group, hehehe, the left overs made it to Mums place.
People have always commented on the time and effort that goes into making these treats, like I said, I really enjoy it, otherwise there is no way I would bother!
This coming Christmas I wont be doing any of it, due to a family reunion happening in Darwin, so I wont be at home. I'm actually disappointed about this.